You really have no idea of a person's past.

This is a double-post with my other blog but I just found the story so sad and yet so inspiring, too.

I had an end of the year luncheon with my boss and other people in our positions. Another coworker and I were talking about grandchildren/grandparents and how she AND her kids all grew up with lots of family around and how I spent my summers with my grandparents. My supervisor listened to us and then said, “You are so lucky to have known your grandparents.” And we both agreed. My supervisor related the following story to us:

Her father was black and her mom was white. When they married, her mom’s family disowned her. Her father was 30 years older than her mom, so his family was already gone when D came along. After her father died, her mom’s parents got in touch with her and asked her to come by and mend the broken relationship and to please bring D with her so that she could get to know her grandparents. She was 8 years old. They went and visited and had a lovely time. The next day the grandparents called to say how nice it was to have the mom back in the family and how wonderful it was to meet D. BUT for future visits they had to come at night so D wouldn’t be seen.

D is one of the most put together women I know (next to my mom and mother-in-law). She handles her duties, our afterschool program, the yearbook, the Sunshine committee and is on probably a hundred other committees as well. She handles it all with such aplomb. She's very rarely even short, though I know she has to be sick of some of the doofiness I pull, not to mention the time crunches and selfishness that tends to be inherent in so many teachers. I would never have guessed she had this kind of hurt in her background. What she went through is enough for young people these days to give up on life and live off the government whining about how they didn't get a fair break.

Oh, please! Get over yourself. What other people think about you is none of your business. If you let yourself be swayed by their stinkin' thinkin', then you deserve to be unhappy. But that's YOUR fault for buying into their thinking! (Talking to myself here!) You are never going to make everyone happy or like you.

That's just the way it is!